Benjamin Britten: A Biography [Hardcover]

Humphrey Carpenter (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1993

A biography of Benjamin Britten which presents a panorama of British musical life since the 1920s.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This new biography is typical of the author's style: comprehensive, probing, and objective. Access to materials from the estate of renowned English composer Edward Benjamin Britten (1913-76) enabled Carpenter to write an enlightening study that focuses on Britten's homosexuality and how it influenced his work. Throughout his life, Britten achieved significant accomplishments yet never felt completely accepted. He followed a strict code of perfectionism, suffered from bouts of depression, and found it difficult to "loosen up." Wrapped around his spirit, though, was the peculiar thrust of artistic drive that is so characteristic of brilliance. Britten received accolades during his lifetime, but full appreciation and acknowledgement did not come until after his death. While much has been written about Britten in the past 17 years, Carpenter's book is an important contribution. Highly recommended. Music Book Society main selection.
- Kathleen Sparkman, Baylor Univ., Waco, Tex.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

A first-rate, if somewhat less than magisterial, treatment by Carpenter (The Brideshead Generation, 1990, etc.) of the life and works of one of the 20th century's towering musical figures--the man who put English music firmly on the larger European map. This is like a run-through of a great symphony by a major orchestra under a more-than-adequate international conductor. All the notes--Carpenter's prodigious research--are firmly in place. The major themes--Britten's overly doting relationship with his mother; his artistic preoccupation with the loss of innocence, which may have stemmed from childhood sexual abuse; his homosexual ``marriage'' to Peter Pears; his indiscrete relationships with young boys; his pacifism; his generosity and his selfishness; his depression and physical illnesses, all transcended by a phenomenal artistic (and especially compositional) energy that allowed him to turn out a staggering series of major and minor works in an unusually full 63 years of life--are crisp, clear, and skillfully played. Above all, Carpenter's respect for the intelligence of his readers shines through, causing him to eschew facile interpretation. And yet. Not only is the narrative overlong (much incidental detail), but the final stamp of passionate identification with the subject is absent. Britten's sparse anecdotes about homosexual rape by a schoolmaster, for example, are handled with exquisite discretion but lead to only a jarring, unnecessary inquiry (``Could they have both been fantasies on Britten's part, sparked off while his imagination was at work on his operas?''). Even readers who answer ``Not bloody likely'' have a right to the author's judgment on such matters. Not written merely from the card index--the book's a good deal better than that, and will be required reading by anyone seriously interested in its subject. But the sense that Carpenter has put his heart into perfect sync with Britten's own faulty organ isn't there. (Three 16-page photo inserts--not seen) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 677 pages
• Publisher: Scribner (June 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684195690
• ISBN-13: 978-0684195698
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #684,218 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Narrative; Weaker Analysis, January 15, 2005

By 

R. Albin (Ann Arbor, Michigan United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Benjamin Britten: A Biography (Hardcover)

This is a good but not outstanding biography of the great Benjamin Britten. Carpenter was well equipped to tackle Britten's life. An experienced biographer, some of his prior work, like his very good biography of Auden, covers the same period and some of the same aspects of British artistic life as this book. Carpenter had the cooperation of the Britten estate and a wide variety of Britten's friends and associates. It is based on a wide variety of documentary material and interviews. This book is thorough, well written, and organized well. As a narrative of Britten's personal and professional lives, it is very strong and unlikely to be surpassed. The book shows very well Britten's remarkable creativity. A disciplined worker, Britten produced a large volume of outstanding music while also performing and working as a major force in the development of British musical life. Carpenter also shows, though implicitly, that Britten was a charismatic figure. He had a remarkable ability to attract the services of other talented individuals, allowing him to realize very ambitious projects such as his operas and the development of the Aldeburgh festival. Carpenter is fair in this treatment of Britten, showing both the attractive and unfortunate aspects of his personality, such as his tendency to callously discard co-workers when he felt he could work more productively with others.
Carpenter is less good in dealing with Britten's music. This is true both for Britten's output in general and specific works. Nowhere in this book do we get any sense of why Britten chose to focus on vocal music. Britten did produce important orchestral and chamber work, but his most important output was opera, less conventional music theater like his church parables, choral music, and songs. Britten's ability to set text to music was truly remarkable. Did Britten see this as his great strength as a composer or were there other reasons for the focus of his career? Carpenter tends also to interpret individual works, particularly the operas, in light of very specific aspects of Britten's life, especially his sexuality. In many cases, such as the operas Peter Grimes and Death in Venice, this makes good sense. With these interpretations, Carpenter seems also to be following the lead of some other scholars who have studied Britten. This approach, however, seems not so much wrong as excessively reductive. For example, Carpenter's discussion of Britten's underappreciated opera Gloriana, composed for the coronation of Elizabeth II, focuses on the character of the Earl of Essex, who Carpenter sees as embodying some of Britten's preoccupations about his life as public artist. The main figure of the opera, however, is Elizabeth I, and an important theme of the work is the collision of private needs and public responsibilities in the exercise of power. Surely, this was not lost on the premiere audience, which included the young Elizabeth II, who later became something of a patron of Britten. Carpenter gives no real sense of the position that Britten occupies in the history of 20th century music, probably because he doesn't have the musicological knowledge necessary to establish this kind of context. Less understandably, Carpenter misses an opportunity to discuss Britten's important role in the professionalization and expansion of post-war British musical and artistic life. Carpenter's own narrative shows the somewhat amateurish quality of pre-war British musical life and its remarkable evolution in the post-war period, a process in which Britten was a important creative figure.
This book is a useful source for those interested in Britten specifically, 20th century music, opera, and the history of British intellectual life. There is still an opportunity to write a first rate biography of Britten.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Britten bio almost great., July 13, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Benjamin Britten: A Biography (Hardcover)

Carpenter, through numerous quotes from colleagues, friends and written correspondence from the composer himself provides a rare and intimate view into Britten's creative mind and personality. The only tedious aspect of this in-depth biography is in Carpenter's descriptions of Britten's pieces. Carpenter tries to speculate about how much of Britten's real life went into his music. The result comes off as searching for Britten's homosexuality and lost innocense in tones. It is however an absorbing and educating read

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fine by me, March 14, 2010

By 

S. Jones (Schenectady) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Benjamin Britten: A Biography (Hardcover)

I enjoyed this book tremendously. When I first heard there were naysayers about it I rushed to the web to see if there were glaring inaccuracies, but that does not seem to be the case. Corn Soup (another reviewer here) is simply wrong in saying that the book has "nary a word" on Britten's poorly paid staff, fawning on royalty, and particularly his ill-treatment of people once he was done with them. Even his ambiguous relationships with boys is covered in the book, and the author does not leave us without his opinion -- several times he puts forth the idea that Britten didn't give in to desires to have sex with them, although, quite appropriately, he does not present this as fact. Which it isn't, unless someone knows of new evidence? If so, I doubt Carpenter had that evidence at hand. As to his musical analysis, certainly there could be more and it could be more probing; Carpenter put in enough to suit non-musicologists and to go along with the themes of his book. Personally, I don't hold that against him. A perfect book? Doubt it. Nonetheless, one of the most thorough and most satisfying biographies I've read.